Friday, 19 June 2009

DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Filipinos, Foreign Aid and Five-Year-Olds

In which Libertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath takes his regularly irreverent look at some of the past week’s headlines.

Taxpayers Get Bill For MPs’ Campaign Trips– Productive New Zealanders have just funded seventeen Molesworth St parasites to visit Mt Albert during the recent by-election campaign. These cockroaches attended sham meetings and conducted “parliamentary business” in Auckland so that you and I would be forced to pick up the tab for their hotel bills, taxi fares and electioneering. Jonathan Hunt would be proud of them. National’s party whip says all MPs acted within the rules. Time then, I say, for an immediate overhaul of those rules. Let’s make political parties self-funding. Why the hell should I be forced to fund Phil Goff or John Key, when the policies they espouse turn my stomach? Quote of the week has to be Parliamentary Services general manager Geoff Thorn who in a moment of psychosis described MPs as “honourable people.” Honourable people who don’t hesitate to spend other people’s money in the pursuit of power. At least the Libertarianz Party were honourable enough to refuse taxpayer funding for television advertising during the 2008 election campaign. In addition, they were not allowed to fund their own television advertising, thus closing that door as a means of putting their message across. I say it again: why should an individual be forced to fund campaigns for organisations whose ideas and policies are diametrically opposed to his own? It’s high time we abolished restrictions on political advertising, and stopped public funding of political parties.

‘Give Maori Free Access To Uni’ – Pita Sharples insults Maori students with his call for tertiary institutions to lower their entry standards for a favoured minority group that he considers incapable of entering university under their own steam. Sharples presumably wants not just equality of opportunity in our universities - which Maori people already have now - but equality of outcome. How on earth does he think someone who has failed to achieve at secondary school could march straight into university and succeed? If Dr Sharples is so worried about the absence of Maori in mainstream education, why not get rid of “mainstream”? What’s wrong with a bit of diversity in our education system? Why not make it easier for interested parties to set up new educational facilities, including ones who gave free access to everyone regardless of school achievement? Or even race-based ones, as preferred by Dr Sharples. Just don’t ask me to fund race-based universities, because I have other priorities for my money – such as educating my own children. In fact, get the state right out of education. If Dr Sharples is so concerned about the lack of Maori participation in universities, why doesn’t he petition the tribes, with their billions in Treaty settlement pay-offs, to fund their own private universities, with their own entry criteria?

Don't repatriate Filipino workers, pleads consul – Thousands of workers from the Philippines plan to outstay their work permits. Their consul-general here has asked that these people be allowed to stay, as many of them have sold everything they own back home to come and work here. I say: why not let them stay? Get rid of minimum wage laws, so that they can all find work; and stop them from claiming taxpayer-funded welfare, so they don’t become a drain on the rest of us. Let’s make these Filipinos the recipients of “foreign aid” by giving them jobs here. Once they find employment, give them a vote. Equally, remove the franchise from native-born sickness, invalid and unemployment beneficiaries. Give people incentive to be self-supporting, instead of rewarding non-production.

Fury As Five Year Old Told To Clean Toilets – A five year old who hit another child in the face with a ball is not smacked but instead is told to clean toilets at the child care facility he attends. This has apparently caused damage to his mother’s ‘mana’ and trampled his spirit. Well, diddums. This child has been directed into some work that will benefit other children. I say well done to the caregivers responsible for turning a negative into a positive, and exposing this child to a work situation early in his life. Too many children in situations of intergenerational welfare dependency never learn what work is, and survive (if they are lucky) in squalid filthy conditions, looked after by dope-addled criminals. And here’s the kicker: the five year old’s mother is now seeking advice from Annette Sykes - the same Annette Sykes who rejoiced when Islamic terrorists killed thousands of innocent people on September 11, 2001. A real expert on human rights, our Annette. Wonder if she thought for one second about the mana and spirit of those who perished in the World Trade Centre?

See y’all next week! Doc McGrath

* * Read Richard McGrath’s column every Wednesday here at NOT PC . . . except when when you read it on a Friday * *

Ruth - I was thinking more of the kids who move straight from school into uni without having learnt how to study and process information. Adult students who have matured a bit and lived in the real world for a while do much better, even if they didn't do well at school.

Richard I think anyone who can front up with the fee should be able to attend university/tech or whatever, regardless of age or school quals. Sharples is maybe on the right track about that, but racist to include just Maori, and ridiculous for wanting it to be 'free'.

It's not the attending that matters so much as the passing. Passing requirements should be rigorous and the same for everyone.

My own son left school 2 years ago at 15, with no qualifications. He is now doing really well at tech, getting top marks - and they actually give you your % mark, unlike NCEA.

From what I have seen most school 'drop outs' are *not* dumb,though they leave school thinking they are, and with their self-esteem at zero. They should be given a second chance. I agree with Sharples about that.

Of course if govt got out of education this issue possibly would not even arise.

Ruth - you're dead right. A lot of those kids with the rock-bottom self-esteem are the result of a system that only knows one way to teach and is fairly inflexible in dealing with kids who don't quite fit in.

At University of Auckland, they have an bridging program for adult students, ie, those who left school without senior high school qualification but want to come back and do degree programs.

Even with the bridging program (ie, a full year of basic introduction to core subjects), if the candidate doesn't pass the requirements in order to enroll for certain papers, he/she wouldn't be allowed to enroll. But their program is well run where those who left at say 4th form and had been in the work-force for a long time do succeed & pass the program where they go on to enroll in Science, Commerce, etc... , which they formally start at year 1.

I don't see the point of entry to University based on race. It should be based on academic merits, even with a bridging program for adult students which is more like a 6th or a 7th form-level introduction, if the candidate doesn't pass that basic introduction level, they wouldn't be allowed to enroll in certain papers/courses. Reason? It costs University (in terms of resource allocations) to admit these low-achievers who would be very likely to fail.

I guess that I have a similar background to Maori's exactly as what Peter Sharples stated in the media, but that's not an excuse to grant me or any other minority an entry to University based on the notion that us (Pacific Islanders) & the Maoris do lack the ability to succeed academically. Everyone should be entered thru the front gate based on academic achievements, rather than getting thru by jumping over the fence.

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